'Permanent government' seizes moment to shape thinking of elected politicians

Tuesday 26 January 2010 19.05 EST
First published on Tuesday 26 January 2010 19.05 EST

When Tony Blair moved into Downing Street his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, used to tell visitors how the new prime minister would replace Whitehall's feudal baronies with a Napoleonic model of government – a results-oriented regime driven from No 10.

A decade or so later the highly politicised, command-and-control approach, much of it visible in the Thatcher era, is more remembered for its failures – from Iraq to school Sats to ID cards – than its successes. In 2010 all parties agree, with varying degrees of contrition, that Whitehall should become cheaper, smarter, decentralised and customer-focused.

Gordon Brown diagnosed many of the problems in 2007, but has proved unable to apply himself to effective remedies. With a change of political direction all but certain after the election, the permanent government – officials, quangocrats and advisers – have seized their chance to publish blueprints for reform. They know that for once politicians may be listening.

Ten days ago the Institute for Government (IFG), generously funded by the former science minister and grocery dynast Lord David Sainsbury, and run by unorthodox former mandarin Sir Michael Bichard, published its draft. Based on anonymous interviews with 61 senior Whitehall officials, its focus is the need to restore what it calls a strong "strategic centre".

Not Blair's Napoleonic version (charismatic and often evidence-light), but civil servants committed to no more than 20 key goals for government. Below it, ministries should become better self-managed and much better at cross-departmental co-operation, Blair's elusive "joined-up government". Wannabe Tory ministers have been to IFG training seminars, where only sensitive subjects such as Europe are avoided.

Sparse media reports portrayed the IFG study as an attack on Brown's "dysfunctional government," as some did ("Brown's knee-jerk policies") the rival report of the Better Government Initiative, published today but leaked at the weekend. Both are more nuanced than that, though they barely disguise disappointment with Labour's record and hope of influencing a new team.

Sir Christopher Foster, the BGI chairman, who advised Labour ministers in the 1970s, called Blair "the worst prime minister since Lord North" as a manager. The Chilcot (a BGI insider) inquiry has heard officials hint as much. Foster's complaints are wider and older: that governments dream up bad laws (remember the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act?), driven by short-term policy-itis and the media's "inexhaustible appetite" for novelty. He wants a stronger Commons, better scrutiny and fewer bills.

Backbench reformers were pressing the case on Jack Straw last night, though suspicion between the elected and unelected elites is running strong: Sir Thomas Legg, well-pensioned scourge of MPs' expenses, is another BGI insider.

It will be easy for critics to detect a lot of "golden age" nostalgia in the mandarin critique. Thatcher and Blair tried to shake up the system because they judged it elegantly ill-equipped to deal with the contemporary world.

A succession of inadequate cabinet secretaries, keepers of the Whitehall flame, have been in effect sidelined by No 10 political teams, though the incumbent, low-key Sir Gus O'Donnell, is reckoned to have mastered the job better than most. The Tories plan to keep him on: the permanent government continues.